Presentation delivered by Charles Oppenhiem, at ARLG's [Academic & Research Libraries Group] Yorkshire & Humberside branch's Open Access Advocacy event, University of Bradford, 25th November 2014

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF OA FOR
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Charles Oppenheim
Visiting Professor at numerous Universities
c.oppenheim@btinternet.com
ARLG OA Advocacy Event, Bradford, 25 November
2014

2. AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROBLEM

3. Verified Syntheses of Zeolitic Materials2001, Pages 267
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5. WHAT IS OA?
• The Open Access (OA) movement arose as a result of two
developments:
• The “serials crisis”, i.e., research journals increasingly unaffordable,
hence inaccessible, to researchers’ institutions, even the richest
ones; and
• The advent of online, which made it possible in principle to make all
research outputs freely accessible to all online-enabled users.
• The feeling that everyone should be entitled to access the results of
publicly-funded and charity-funded research, so they can make
informed decisions about their life, e.g., Ebola outbreak, where
scholarly publishers’ response has, with some exceptions, been
slow and reluctant
• The primary target of OA is refereed research journal articles,
though of course it can apply to reports, theses, data collections,
etc.

6. Two questions: Do authors WANT to give
up
all of their rights to their work?

7. Do authors HAVE to give up
all of their rights to their work?

8. GREEN AND GOLD
• GOLD = publishing in an OA journal (often, but not invariably, for a
publication fee – the so-called Article Processing Charge, or APC)
• It is a common misunderstanding by outsiders that all Gold journals
involve APCs.
• GREEN = publishing in a traditional subscription journal and, in addition,
self-archiving the (often) final, peer-reviewed draft online.
• The majority of OA to date is Green, and yet third parties commonly think
OA refers to Gold only, or, even worse, that OA is just Gold with APCs
• Green does not entail any payment of fees, and the raw material is
provided by researchers themselves.
• A confession – I am the Godfather of the two colour terms. It all started
with the Romeo Project in 2001-2003. (Now the extremely useful
SHERPA/ROMEO service)
• But I have no truck with other colours (white, purple, shocking pink….), or
with “free” versus ‘gratis” OA, which only serve to confuse things

9. Prevalence of Permission?
Among Publishers
SHERPA/RoMEO covers 1696 publishers as of October 2014.
74% allow some form of self-archiving.
For more information:
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/statistics.php

10. THE ADVANTAGES OF OA - AND YET!
• Advantages provided by OA – free access for all users, no
charges paid by the authors in the case of Green OA,
enhanced research uptake and impact, relief from the
serials crisis, and the speed and power of online.
• One would expect that researchers would have quickly
moved to OA.
• But the growth of OA of both colours has actually been
surprisingly slow
• Estimate vary, but it seems between 20% and 30% of
current research outputs are in OA form, and of course it
is a much lower % for older materials.

11. PUBLISHERS’ RESPONSE TO OA
• To begin with, they dismissed it as a fad that would never
take off
• They then developed a response, i.e., Gold OA with APCs
• The business model is to maintain their current profit
margin by offering this alternative, or hybrid journals, all
of which you get for a subscription, but some articles, if
APCs have been paid, available to all
• Financial analysts at first thought that scholarly publisher
profits would fall because of the development of OA, but
now seem to think the big publishers in particular have a
viable business model with paid for Gold

12. THE GREEN OA PUZZLE
• Green OA should be especially attractive to Institutions and their
employees because there are no APCs to be paid.
• There are many reasons why researchers have been so slow to provide
Green OA even though they themselves would be its biggest potential
beneficiaries.
• Researchers are unsure whether they have the legal right to self-archive
• They fear that it might put their paper’s acceptance for publication at risk
• They believe that self-archiving may be a lot of work.
• As we shall see, all these concerns are groundless, but it has become clear
that merely pointing out how and why they are groundless is not enough
to induce authors to self-archive.
• So, researchers’ funders and institutions worldwide are beginning to make
OA mandatory for researchers’ publications, not only for the benefit of the
researchers, but also their employers, and of course, society as a whole.

13. THE GROUNDLESS CONCERNS
• Researchers are unsure whether they have the legal right to
self-archive – addressed in my slides entitled “Copyright” a bit
later
• They fear that it might put their paper’s acceptance for
publication at risk – yes, they may be forced to submit the
paper to an alternative journal that is more generous in its
permissions. Discussed further later.
• They believe that self-archiving may be a lot of work – this is
where librarians come in! More on your role to reduce or
eliminate this fear later.

14. SOME OA MANDATE INITIATIVES
• NIH in the US and the Wellcome Trust in the UK, Research
Councils UK, the European Commission, and now President
Obama’s Directive to all the major US federal funding
agencies, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
• Research institutions, including Harvard, MIT, University
College London and ETH Zurich require all their journal article
output, across all disciplines, funded and unfunded, to be
deposited in their institutional OA repositories.
• HEFCE requirement for the next REF, which has huge
implications for HEIs that may not have taken OA seriously
before.

15. VARIABLE ACCEPTANCE OF MANDATES
• The mandates differ widely, both in their specific
requirements and in their resultant success in
generating OA.
• Some mandates generate deposit rates of over 80%,
whereas others are doing no better than the global
baseline for spontaneous (un-mandated) self-archiving.
• So what are the conditions that are essential to
making a mandate effective, i.e., to get the vast
majority of outputs into that repository?

16. COPYRIGHT I
• It will come as no surprise to those who know me
that this subject comes up
• Researchers MUST stop routinely signing publishers’
copyright agreements without reading them
carefully.
• In general, publishers require assignment of
copyright before they will publish the output.
• But this is just a bluff!
• My own experiences with Elsevier

17. COPYRIGHT II
• Researchers should be offering the publisher a licence to
publish – something quite different to assignment.
• What is the difference?
• Researchers should ensure that they only go with a
publisher that is willing to agree to this.
• It is the librarian’s job to point them in the right
direction.
• But what if the publisher/journal is prestigious, and the
researcher insists it is essential that the article appears in
that vehicle?
• Controversial as it might appear, the employer should
INSIST.
• Is this an infringement of academic freedom?

18. ACADEMIC FREEDOM
• To me, this means the right to undertake research in, and
to publish outputs in, subjects that may be unpopular
with some, or many people.
• To me, it does NOT mean the right to publish in a
particular journal chosen by the researcher.
• The researcher should accept that there are
circumstances when the employer is entitled to insist on
particular publications methods.
• Researchers already have to accept limitations on, e.g.,
the way they submit funding applications, the way they
deliver lectures, the way they supervise PhD students,
ethical codes of conduct, etc. I don’t see this issue as
being significantly different!

19. COPYRIGHT III
• Once we have it as routine that authors will only grant
licences to publishers, then everything is set up for OA
because the author retains the right to post it where they
like.
• An alternative is to assign copyright to the publisher with
the publishers granting back to the author a licence to
put on the repository, possibly after an agreed embargo
period. This is not perfect, but is better than nothing –
and is quite common practice.
• If the researchers goes for Gold, there are numerous
respectable OA Gold journals – but also, unfortunately, a
lot of really dodgy ones. Researchers must be taught
how to identify the good ones.

20. OVERALLL ON COPYRIGHT
• The bluff depends on publishers convincing the authors that the author
needs the publisher more than the publisher needs the output
• But the truth is, both parties need each other
• Yes, an eminent experienced researcher is in a much stronger position
than a junior wanting to get their very first publication (see me vs Elsevier)
– and that is why employer/supervisor support for the junior researcher,
and mandates are so important
• Employer/HEFCE mandates mean the researcher is obliged to say to the
publisher “I’m really sorry but my hands are tied on this – I’m not allowed
to assign copyright to you”.
• Libraries can play a key role here by teaching ECRs – and more
experienced ones – about the issues, and how to approach publishers
• Authors must play their part too, so let’s get onto them…..

21. Advice to Authors
1. Research any journal/publisher you’re considering.
(Quality? Peer reviewing process? Copyright policy?) Ask for advice
from your librarian!
2. If you have the right to self-archive, exercise that right.
1. If you don’t have the right to self-archive in the agreement you are
asked to sign with the publisher, request it, or rather, REQUIRE IT.
1. Choose the best publishing outlet for you and your career…
2. …but also think about the system you’re contributing to and the
system you want to contribute to.
Know your rights to what you write!

22. THE ROLE OF EMPLOYERS
• The ideal policy: when it comes to appraisals, promotion panels/decisions
on tenure, etc., only outputs in the employer’s repository will be taken
into consideration
• Warn staff that signing of a publisher’s form should not be done without
reading the small print carefully
• Issue a clear and comprehensive mandate policy
• Introduce for all new staff as a condition of employment that they may
only publish journal outputs using OA
• Spend time and money educating researchers, ideally through the library
• Ensure that library staff assist researchers in uploading journal outputs to
the repository
• Offer prizes/incentives, e.g., the author of every thousandth item on the
repository gets a cash or other reward

23. THE ROLE OF FUNDERS
• Not just make it a requirement for recipients that they
publish outputs from research in OA form
• Also provide the funds to assist where APCs are involved
• Don’t give further grants to the individual, or anyone else
from their institution, if a previous recipient has failed to
place the outputs in a suitable OA repository
• Just imagine if Wellcome Trust refused to consider ANY
application from the University of X until Dr Bloggs, a
previous recipient of its funding, hadn’t uploaded their
outputs to the repository, or had mistakenly signed a
copyright agreement with a publisher that stopped them
from doing so. Would you want to be in Dr Bloggs’
shoes?

24. TO RETURN TO THE ROLE OF
LIBRARIES
• OA offers huge potential benefits to the library in terms of reduced costs,
increased prestige, getting more involved with your Institution’s research, as well
as the broader benefits to society.
• For major long-term projects, a member of library staff should be dedicated to
support the team in all sorts of ways, including advice on OA, on copyright issues,
and on how to upload materials. If need be, of course, offer to upload the outputs
for them.
• If you have success stories, tell others about it, as indeed you will be hearing from
the other speakers today
• Pass information about OA around, and explain the permissions licences give
researchers to undertake OA.
• Warn staff, research students, etc., about publisher copyright agreements, advise
on ways to amend the wording, recommend particular publishers with better
agreements
• Correct people who think that “OA” is “Gold journals with APCs”.
• Make the business of uploading to the repository trivially simple and/or do it for
them,
• Teach researchers on how to identify dodgy Gold journals!

25. I REST MY CASE M’LUD
• Mike Taylor, an academic paleontologist, summarised
the message perfectly: “Really, folks, this is super simple.
If you want people to read (and cite!) your work, PUT IT
IN A JOURNAL THEY CAN READ.”
• For an interesting overview of author attitudes to OA,
see the recent Taylor & Francis survey at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/openaccess/opensurv
ey/2014
• N.B. My moustache – see
http://uk.movember.com/mospace/4057341
• Time for questions/discussion!

26. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The colourful
slides are all from
Jill Cirasella
jcirasella@gc.cuny.edu
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Slides at: http://tinyurl.com/GCauthorsrights